cliff that he had been having with congressional leaders this afternoon. he said it was the bare minimum that congressional leaders could come up with a deal and it was the wrong thing to do to allow taxes to come up. i want to bring in christin welker. christin, it sounded like the president was saying he's got at least an agreement that should be an up or down vote, no matter what the agreement looks like on the senate and then on to the house. is that what you heard, too? >> reporter: that is what i heard. he essentially said, look, i asked reid and mcconnell to get some sort of a compromise if they can't do this in a reasonable time, he's asking them to give an up or down vote on this bare minimum package that he outlined last friday that he talked about today, as well, extending the tax cuts as well as sort of staving off some of those deep cuts that are set to go into effect. but he also said he's modestly optimistic, which suggests this is certainly not a done deal. you also heard him talk about the fact that this is something the average american d